Leaked Stratfor Email Exposes FBI Concerns Over NYPD Surveillance

Among the roughly five million internal emails that the hacktivist collective Anonymous extracted from the servers of Stratfor — a private intelligence firm headquartered in Austin, Texas — one particular message stood out for its explosive content. Obtained in February 2012 and subsequently provided to WikiLeaks, the email appeared to corroborate the controversial NYPD domestic surveillance operations that the Associated Press had been exposing through its own investigative reporting. But the message went further, suggesting that undisclosed civil liberties violations of an even more serious nature had taken place.

The email originated from an individual described as a senior FBI official and was forwarded by Fred Burton, Stratfor’s vice president for intelligence and a former deputy chief of counterterrorism at the State Department. Burton circulated the message to an internal distribution list referred to as the “Alpha List,” instructing recipients to treat the contents as background information only and not to publish them.

A Senior FBI Official Compares NYPD Intel to COINTELPRO

What made the FBI official’s assessment so remarkable was his direct comparison of the NYPD Intelligence Division’s activities to some of the most infamous episodes of government overreach in American history. He predicted that when the full scope of the division’s operations over the preceding decade eventually became public knowledge, the revelations would make former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s activities, the COINTELPRO domestic surveillance program, and the notorious “Red Squads” of earlier eras look amateurish by comparison. He characterized some of what the NYPD Intelligence Division had undertaken as outright criminal conduct and described it as constituting serious violations of American citizens’ constitutional rights.

The official’s identity was not disclosed. Burton referred to him as a close personal friend, claiming to have mentored him throughout his career.

Stratfor issued a general statement after some of its internal communications became public, cautioning that certain messages may have been fabricated or modified to introduce inaccuracies. The firm declined to address specific emails, stating it would not allow itself to be “victimized twice” by answering questions about stolen property.

The Jose Pimentel Case: A Window into FBI-NYPD Friction

The email exchange emerged from a discussion about the case of Jose Pimentel, a 27-year-old American of Dominican heritage who was charged with attempting to construct three pipe bombs for detonation in New York City. Authorities described him as a lone-wolf terror suspect with sympathies toward al-Qaeda.

The FBI official explained to Burton why the Bureau had distanced itself from the Pimentel prosecution, pointing to serious problems with the confidential informant at the center of the investigation. According to the official, the informant had essentially been steering the entire operation — the suspect obtained his funding, planning guidance, and materials exclusively through the source. Making matters worse, the informant had used marijuana with Pimentel while wearing an NYPD recording device. Reports subsequently indicated the informant himself faced drug possession charges based on that very recording, raising obvious questions about his credibility as a future trial witness.

Internal NYPD Power Struggle Between Intelligence and JTTF

Beyond the problematic informant, the FBI official illuminated a deeper institutional rift — not primarily between the FBI and NYPD, but within the NYPD’s own ranks. The approximately 100 NYPD detectives assigned to the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) reportedly operated in close coordination with federal partners. The NYPD Intelligence Division, by contrast, was described as running entirely independent operations under the direction of former CIA official David Cohen.

According to the FBI source, the Intelligence Division actively worked to undermine their fellow NYPD detectives serving on the JTTF. He noted that Cohen had little experience building criminal cases or providing testimony in court — a significant liability when intelligence gathering needed to produce prosecutable results.

Sean Noonan, a Stratfor tactical analyst, observed in a follow-up message to the Alpha List that this internal NYPD divide contradicted the public narrative. Proponents of the NYPD’s counterterrorism apparatus had been promoting the idea that the department’s intelligence and counterterrorism units had successfully embedded themselves within the JTTF structure, almost to the point of having co-opted it.

ACLU: FBI Knew About Violations But Failed to Investigate

Michael German, a former FBI agent who had conducted undercover infiltrations of white supremacist terrorist organizations and who served as senior policy counsel at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, reviewed the email exchange and described the FBI official’s criticism of NYPD intelligence operations as “doubly ironic.”

German pointed out that the FBI itself had engaged in extensive surveillance of Muslim American communities — cataloging mosques, mapping neighborhoods with significant Muslim populations, deploying informants into houses of worship, and using the pretense of community outreach programs to gather intelligence on religious and advocacy organizations.

More critically, German emphasized that the FBI bore statutory responsibility for enforcing civil rights laws, including protections against violations committed by law enforcement officers acting under color of authority. The email suggested the Bureau possessed knowledge that NYPD Intelligence Division personnel were engaged in widespread criminal conduct that violated Americans’ constitutional protections, yet the FBI appeared to have neither initiated a civil rights investigation nor taken any steps to halt the alleged illegal activity.

German noted that criminal investigators assigned to JTTFs generally considered the intelligence product generated by analysts — whether from NYPD intelligence or FBI intelligence units — to be of little practical value. He also expressed no surprise that the FBI had declined to investigate its partner agency’s alleged wrongdoing, observing that the Bureau had similarly failed to open investigations when it learned of other government agencies engaging in torture and warrantless wiretapping.

Joint Terrorism Task Forces: Background and Scale

JTTFs are FBI-led investigative units that combine personnel from federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to detect terrorist activity and prevent attacks. Originally established in the 1980s, the JTTF program expanded rapidly following the September 11 attacks. By 2012, 104 such task forces operated across the country and had become a cornerstone of the nation’s counterterrorism infrastructure.

As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tim Weiner documented in his book “Enemies: A History of the FBI,” the Bureau had long functioned as what he called America’s closest equivalent to a secret police force — making the FBI official’s own alarm about NYPD overreach all the more striking.

Originally published September 5, 2012. Content based on Stratfor emails released through WikiLeaks and reporting by Truthout journalists Matthew Harwood and Jason Leopold.